To start things off I present to you the Handflammpatrone, Germany's most secretive post war weapon, and tell you exactly why nobody really talks about it anymore.
Have you ever wondered if the Germans learned their lesson after WWI and WWII about the use of flamethrowers, and how to avoid the main problems thereof?
Well, they sure did, and the Handflammpatrone (literally translated as: hand-flame-cartridge) is the answer to 99% of them.
The one percent of issues that wasn't solved was related to friendly "fire" incidents, but let's ignore those for now.
So what exactly is the Handflammpatrone? A more accurate question would be "What WAS the Handflammpatrone?", because it is no longer getting stocked, and all supplies of it have been used up. It was a small plastic tube filled to the brim with phosphorus, that had a trigger on one end, and a propellant charge stuffed in the rear. Pull the trigger, and phosphorus gets sprayed out forward pretty far.
According to official doctrine it shall be used in city fighting and when engaging heavily entrenched enemy positions, or defending the same. They came in boxes of 17, and pouches of 3, each capable of shooting a HOT LOAD of WHITE PHOSPHORUS with an IMPACT/TIMED-FUSE DETONATOR like a motherfucking Napalm derringer, only more HOT and with a range of 90 meters. You would either shoot it directly at an object and it would burst it's load all over it, covering it in HOT white PHOSPORUS, or you would shoot it into the air, wait for the fuse to detonate it, and watch the phosphorus spread over a large area. Of course, this would only be done to blind the enemy or disable vehicles :^)
You can guess why it was such a great secret. Nobody wanted to be "breaking international law" again, so they simply claimed that this device was for illumination and engaging vehicles only, which was of course not true.
Pic 1 always makes me chuckle. It almost looks like a Stielgranate. Not much changed.
Read ZDv 3/17 for more info. Fucking interesting piece of history.